General Villa has now declared war on President Carranza. Everybody's doing it.
⁂
Is there, we wonder, a single unfair weapon which the Germans have not used? It is now said that not infrequently a German band is made to play when the enemy's infantry advances to attack.
⁂
A regrettable mistake is reported from South London. A thoroughly patriotic man was sat upon by a Cockney crowd for declaring that the Kaiser was a Nero.
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Servia, The Times announces, will in future be called Serbia in our contemporary's columns. We would suggest that in the same way Bavaria might be called Babaria.
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All German soldiers are close-cropped. To show, apparently, that they have the courage of the conviction they deserve.
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The German officers in France are said to be extremely careful as to what they eat, betraying a great fear of being poisoned. It is, of course, a fact that one grain of vermin-killer would dispose of any one of them.
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It has been suggested that the explanation of the Kaiser may be that he is a "throwback." His parents were gentlefolk, but his ancestor, Frederick William I., was a well-known undesirable.
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It has been decided, after all, that Shakspeare may be played in Germany; and the proposal that the name of the bard should be changed to Wilhelm Säbelschüttler has been dropped in deference to the wishes of the Kaiser, who thought it might lead to confusion.
⁂
It has, we are glad to see, been denied that Carpentier, the famous boxer, has been wounded. This reminds us, by-the-by, of one more miscalculation that the German War Party made. In choosing their date for the outbreak of war they relied on the face that Carpentier was not yet liable for service.
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The Germans have had a bright new idea, and are calling us a nation of shopkeepers. Certainly we have been fairly successful so far in repelling their counter attacks.
⁂
"GERMAN PIES SHOT."
Times.
Sound policy this. The enemy cannot fight without his commissariat.
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A well-known Floor Polish firm has issued a notice declaring that it is entirely a British concern. However, we shall not complain of their dealing with an alien enemy if they care to supply a little of it for the benefit of German manners.
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Dr. Karl Vollmöller, who is chiefly notable for his spectacle "The Miracle," has, The Express tells us, been acting for th epast month as Germany's head Press agent in Rome, and has now sailed for New York. One would have thought that there was greater need for him in Germany, where only a miracle can save the situation.
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Publishers seem to be realising that books, to sell nowadays, must have warlike titles. Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin's new volume is, we note, called A Summer in a Cañon.
⁂
By the way, The Price of Love is announced. It is six shillings.
Hawker. "This ain't my usual way o' gittin' a livin', lidy; but, owin' to the war, I———"
Housekeeper. "That's all nonsense! Why, to my knowledge you have been about for the past ten years."
Hawker. "You'll pardon me, lidy, but I'm referrin' to the Souf Afrikin War."
The dramatic critic of The Daily Chronicle, speaking of the first performance of Mamcena, observes, "Mr. Oscar Asche, jutting, preponderant and softly corrugated, was a splendid Zulu chief."
Following this distinguished example, we have endeavoured to express the histrionic inwardness of some of our leading actors and actresses on similar lines:—
Sir George Alexander, dolicocephalic, fimbriated and supra-lapsarian, interpreted the role of the archdeacon with consummate skill.
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, goliardic, tarantulated and pontostomatous, invested the character of the great financier with a fluorescent charm.
Mr. Ainley, prognathous, salicylic and partially oxydised, made a superb lover.
Miss Gladys Cooper, lambent, pyramidal and turturine, fully realized the polyphonic cajoleries of Seraphina.
A Coincidence.
Thursday.—The Kaiser distributes 30,000 iron crosses.
Friday.—Great Britain declares pig-iron contraband of war.
Members of the Tooloona Rifle Club have collected 1,000 fat sheep as a gift to the British troops. The price of butter has been reduced to £4 per ton, and the wheels of the export trade will be immediately set in motion."
Daily Chronicle.
How fortunate that the price of lubrication fell just in time.
